


Of Want and Cold

by Tokyo_the_Glaive



Series: That Which We Are [2]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Assisted Suicide, Character Death, Character Study, Family Dynamics, Gen, Grief, Old Age, Regret, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 08:03:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6365905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tokyo_the_Glaive/pseuds/Tokyo_the_Glaive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Camilla grew old, and so very tired.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Want and Cold

**Author's Note:**

> The first line of this came from a first line generator, and for whatever reason it made me think of old!Camilla. The Siegbert in this story wasn't born in a babyrealm or anything like that, but rather after the war had ended because babyrealm is totally unreasonable and gross.
> 
> Title is from the same Emily Dickinson poem.

Outside the cabin, the wind howled through the trees.  Inside, the old woman’s fire was nearly out.  She had been dreaming, thinking about times long past, and she hadn’t noticed as the flames began to dwindle in the hearth.  Now, she stoked them, chuckling to herself as she considered her own carelessness.  It wasn’t nearly as cold as the Ice Tribe village—she would know, she’d been there—but humans could be fragile, as she also well knew.  Her bones were old.

(When she was younger, she never thought she’d grow old.  She never thought she’d _live_ long enough to see herself develop wrinkles, to see her skin go pale and sickly, to feel her bones creak and pop with each breath.  She was both immensely grateful, and tremendously sad.  To live, when so many others had died…)

But it wasn’t the time for those thoughts.  She stoked the fire and added another log.  Soon, she’d have to go chop some more wood, though the thought pained her.  Once, she’d been more than just handy with an axe, though it hadn’t been wood she was used to cutting.  The weight still felt good in her hands, or so she told herself.

(She had grown so, so old.)

The cabin groaned under the force of the winds.  This far north, it seemed it was always storming, the wind always blowing.  She’d moved there after the last of her children had grown.  Her husband had died before the last of them had left—it seemed like ages ago since she’d felt his weight across their bed.  She’d felt the need to be alone in her aloneness, to feel the world and truly be a part of it.  She’d never regretted her decision, but it was sometimes daunting to be isolated in something so massive.  It reminded her of the war, of the moment when she understood that a crown bestowed nothing that war could understand.  She was as disposable as the village girl standing next to her, as the ex-assassin, or the border guard searching for a rich husband—as disposable as they treated their own enemy.

But.  There was nothing to be done about that anymore.  The dead were in the ground, or not.  She had lived, and if she bore the weight of living, was that not the appropriate penance?

* * *

The woman rose with the sun the next morning.  When she’d first moved, it had been hard to tell the night apart from the day—that far north, the sun only emerged in watery, grey intervals.  She hadn’t expected to miss the sun, but she did, at least a little.

She hauled herself out of bed, wincing as she pressed her feet against the cold of the floors.  The seasons were changing, and soon, it would be deep winter.  The snow would fall, muffling all sound.  The dark greens and blacks and greys would disappear under a blanket of lovely white.  She would watch it while she cooked, as she had for years.  She liked the snow, though it made hunting game just a little tougher.

Still, the weather hadn’t turned just yet.  The woman carefully dressed, sliding trousers and the rest over her bedclothes to stay the warmest she could before she headed outside.  The air was chill but sharp and clean, and she took in a deep bracing breath.

 _Firewood_ , she told herself.  She needed more firewood.

She walked around the back of her cabin, the hard ground crunching under her feet, to a shed that she’d built not long after the main cabin.  Inside were her tools, most notably her beloved axe.  She couldn’t bear to leave it where the surroundings could chew away at it.  As she lifted the axe, the blade gleamed in what little early light there was, and she could almost see her reflection in the polished steel.  She hadn’t had a mirror in years, and the temptation to look was strong.  Though she knew the opposite to be true, part of her expected to see herself as she once had been—tall and beautiful, young and deadly.

Rather than stare at herself, she took the axe in both hands and left the shed.  She had felled plenty of trees some time earlier in preparation for the coming winter, back when the air had just gotten its teeth, and she went to that massive pile of logs now.  She set her axe beside the stump she used for chopping and grabbed one of the logs.  It was heavy, much longer than she was on either end, but it had been drying for—however long it had been.  She didn’t keep track of time like she used to.  There was no need, up there.

Over the course of the morning, she chopped the long log into sections, and then split those sections into neat halves and quarters.  The wood was dry and straight-grained, and it split like a song.  It brought a smile to her face.

The woman was in the process of hauling the fresh-cut wood inside when she heard something she hadn’t heard in many years.

It was a hard sound to describe, at least to someone who wasn’t already intimately familiar with it.  It was a sort of rhythmic pressurization and depressurization of air—not music at all, nearly silent, until it approached, at which point she could better _hear_ the air being displaced.

Just one wyvern, approaching fast.  Slowly, she set her firewood by the cabin and retrieved her axe.  If it were one of her children visiting, she would be glad to see them.  Anyone else wouldn’t be returning home again, if only because she could think of no one who would come so far without ill intent.

The woman waited before her cabin, axe in hand, until she could see the wyvern approaching in the distance.  It flew from the south, so it undoubtedly carried a rider.  She gripped her axe a little tighter.  Only one of her children had chosen to learn to tame wyvern, and she doubted it was him.

When the wyvern drew closer, it flew lower, and the rider raised their hands.

“Peace, Lady Camilla,” the rider called, “I come bearing news.”

Camilla nearly dropped her axe.  “Siegbert?” she asked.

* * *

Camilla ushered Siegbert inside, keeping one eye on the wyvern he’d flown in on.  It was a beast she recognized, at least—old Ace, Percy’s wyvern—and that soothed her hurt somewhat.  She hadn’t adopted Siegbert—after all, he had Xander—but she had spent many long hours with Siegbert, teaching him and playing with him and caring for him from his infancy through adolescence.  He was one of her children like all the rest.  To see that he’d learned to fly, without coming to her for guidance… That hurt.

But there was nothing to do about it now.  She prepared him a cup of tea, suddenly and horribly aware of how ill-equipped she was to handle visits from her family.  They were royalty, like she had been.  She had none of the comforts to which they were accustomed, particularly the children.  Had it been Elise, it might have been a different story, but Siegbert…

“Thank you,” Siegbert said, gratefully accepting the tea.  He wrapped his hands around the ceramic mug—Camilla had made that cup, years ago, and she’d been proud of it, but now the vibrant color of the ceramic glaze had faded and it looked no better than an earthenware jug—and breathed in deeply.  Siegbert smiled, and something in Camilla melted.  He looked so much like his father.

“Look how you’ve grown,” Camilla said, cupping Siegbert’s face.  “You were such a darling boy, and now you’re a darling man.  I’m so glad you came to visit.”

Siegbert smiled as Xander rarely had, though the expression was short lived.  “Aunt Camilla,” he said.  “I would have come sooner.”

Camilla felt something odd in her chest.  Siegbert didn’t ride a wyvern, and he was alone.

“Your hands are shaking,” Camilla observed.  Even hers, gnarled and bony, had not yet begun to shake, yet Siegbert quivered like a leaf.  Camilla didn’t think it was because of the weather.  “Tell your aunt what’s happened.”

Siegbert swallowed, then set his cup of tea aside.  Camilla pulled him in for a hug even before he’d begun to cry.  Xander had rarely cried in Camilla’s presence, preferring to keep up his stoic façade in lieu of showing any strong emotion, but when he had, he preferred to have his face hidden.  Camilla knew little about Siegbert as he was now, but she supposed he felt much the same.

“I’m sorry,” he said, speaking into her jacket.  Camilla pressed him close to her and ran his hands over his back.  “I’m sorry.”

“There, now,” Camilla said.  “There will be enough time for that.  Take a drink, and tell me why you’ve come.”

* * *

When Siegbert pulled himself together, he seemed ashamed of his display.  Camilla had never known how to combat that shame in Xander, and she couldn’t figure it out now with Siegbert.  She didn’t have much time to dwell on the matter, though, as Siegbert got to the heart of his visit quickly.

“I came as soon as I realized he wasn’t going to recover.  I borrowed Ace to get here as fast as possible,  It’s Father,” he said, looking Camilla in the eye.  “He’s dying.”

Camilla waited for the shock to set in, but it didn’t.  She knew that they all would die, one day.  Xander was older than she was, and she was old.  It was only logical.

“I see,” Camilla said.  “And you’ll be king.”

Siegbert looked away.

“He’s been asking for you,” Siegbert said softly.

 _Ah_.

“I suppose we haven’t any time to waste, then,” Camilla said.  She took hold of Siegbert’s hands and squeezed.

* * *

The flight south wasn’t long, but Camilla had enough time to think, and to worry.  If Xander had asked for her, then he was truly dying.  It had been many years since she’d last seen him, a prudent but ultimately unpopular king, at least amongst those with voices loud enough to reach court.  For all of the villages and tradesfolk Xander passed laws to protect, the rich, grown fat and greedy during their Father’s reign, fought him at every turn.  There had been several attempts at rebellion early on, at least until the rich realized that they didn’t have enough support from their own people to raise an army, much less defeat the Conqueror.  After that, it had been all financial, petty court games in an attempt to discredit the king.  Xander had triumphed, but Camilla hadn’t been around to witness whatever toll it had taken.  That life wasn’t for her, and though she’d gladly slice open anyone who spoke ill of her family, she couldn’t play the game anymore.

She wondered, almost absently, the sight that would await her upon arrival.  Did she miss it?  Would she recognize anything?  Would it matter?  She didn’t know anymore.

“Almost there,” Siegbert said.  His hands were a little too tight around the reins of the wyvern, but old Ace didn’t seem to mind.  Camilla had picked a truly wonderful wyvern for Percy, all those years ago.

They flew through the air, keeping a steady, reasonable altitude, until the sky went from slate, to steel, and finally, a deep, vibrant blue.

Camilla was going home, one last time.

* * *

Castle Krakenberg was much as Camilla remembered it.  She felt like a child once more as she looked upon its tall towers and spires, its bridges and vast, imposing framework of stone.

Looking at her old home, Camilla might have thought herself decades in the past, were it not for the gathering of people just outside the gates.  Camilla’s blood froze.  A rebellion, now, of all times?

“They mourn his absence,” Siegbert said, as if reading her mind.  “Despite Father’s best efforts, word of his illness has spread.  There isn’t a village that hasn’t sent someone to do what they can to help.  They fear what will come if he passes.”

 _They fear my inadequacy_ , was what Camilla heard, was what she knew Siegbert meant.  All these years, and he still felt so small in his father’s shadow.  She squeezed her nephew tightly throughout the descent to solid ground.

* * *

Siegbert led Camilla through the halls of the castle.  Staff stopped as they passed and bowed.

 _Milord, milady_ , they murmured softly.   _Prince Siegbert, Princess Camilla_.

“I conceded my title,” Camilla told Siegbert after the first few instances.  None of the servants would meet her eye, but had they ever?

“In the eyes of the nobility, absolutely,” Siegbert said.  “In the eyes of the people, less so.”

Camilla wasn’t sure how to respond to that.  Once, she might have, but now…

Instead, she directed her attention at the servants.  “No black,” she said.  “Didn’t they used to wear black in times like these?”

“Father has forbidden those who know of his illness to begin mourning before he has died,” Siegbert said.  Camilla started a bit.  “Forgive me,” Siegbert said hastily.  “He has personally forbidden me from using euphemisms for his death.  He says it’s unbecoming.”

Camilla smiled slightly.  She could easily see Xander giving such orders.  “He’s become quite the tyrant,” she said, her tone light and teasing.

Siegbert smiled a little, too.  “He’s sacrificed everything for everyone,” he said.  “I suppose it’s about time he gets his way.”

* * *

Xander was laid up in the master suite, propped up amongst pillows and blankets.  His hair, once such a lovely gold, was a stark white against the dark sheets.  His skin very nearly matched, and were it not for the shifting of the bedclothes as he breathed in and out, Camilla might have thought that they were too late.

“Sister,” Xander said, and something inside Camilla broke.  Whenever they had interacted when they were younger, they were ever Xander and Camilla, never brother and sister.  Their parents hadn’t encouraged kindness or even civility toward one another.  Leo’s birth had changed something in the both of them, and they had banded together to protect their younger siblings, but they themselves always struggled to show each other the same sort of warmth.  To see that changed—to hear Xander refer to her as his sister…

“Brother,” Camilla said, and Xander smiled.

“I’ll wait outside,” Siegbert said.  “The others have already…”

Camilla nodded, and Siegbert ducked outside.

“He’s afraid,” Camilla said, when the door was closed.

“He will be a better king than I ever was,” Xander said.  He made to sit up, but a coughing spell overtook him.  Camilla rushed to his side and eased him back down.

“I despise this,” Xander said, glaring at the ceiling.  Camilla nodded, brushing a thin strand of hair out of his face.  “This weakness, this, this…”

“Brother,” Camilla said.   _Sister_ , he’d called her.  She had come home.  Suddenly, she dreaded the future—a world without this.  She didn’t think she could go back to the cold, back to the silence, the solitude, the—

Xander swallowed.  “Thank you for coming,” he said.  His voice rasped as it never had before.  “I’ve missed you.”  Slowly, he lifted a hand to cup Camilla’s cheek.  Camilla rested a hand atop his.

“I missed you, too,” she said.  She hadn’t realized how much she had missed her siblings, particularly Xander.  Leo and Elise had visited, however irregularly, and Corrin, sweet, Corrin, but Xander had had his hands tied by crown and throne.  How long had it been?

“I tried,” Xander said, “to make Nohr what we dreamed of as children.  Do you remember?”

“I remember,” Camilla said softly, and she did.  Before Xander completely closed off, before he even fully trusted her, they had talked about the world they could build if they ever had enough power—clean water and safe farms and prosperity and light, so much light…

“I couldn’t,” Xander admitted.  “I tried, I fought so hard, and I couldn’t…”

Xander shut his eyes as another coughing spell overtook him.

“You did what was right,” Camilla said, understanding that this wasn’t about whatever had transpired after she left.  This was about war, about death and destruction and the toll of conquest.

“I tried,” Xander said.

Camilla tried to smile and found her lips were shaking.  Xander thumbed at her cheek.

“Don’t cry, sister,” he said.

The tears welled in Camilla’s eyes.  “Oh, Xander,” she said.  “Big brother.”

“Little sister,” Xander said, “don’t cry.”

Camilla sniffled.  She couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried.  She had thought, with the death of her husband, that all of her tears were gone.  There was no one left to cry for, nothing left to mourn.  Nothing, save news of a child’s death, perhaps, could shake her.  It seemed she was wrong, and here, in the privacy of the king’s chambers, Camilla permitted herself the luxury of weeping openly.

“I have,” Xander said, breathing deeply—his chest rattled as it never had when he had stood tall and shining at the head of a column of soldiers, or before the throne of Nohr.  “I have a request to make of you, sister.”

“Anything,” Camilla said.

Xander shook his head as best as he could given his limited mobility.  “This existence, it’s…” He paused, took in as deep a breath as he could, and let it out.  “When I was a child,” he said, trying again, “they told me to steer clear of you.  That you would kill me for the throne.”

Camilla knew full well what Xander had been told.  She, for her part, had been warned away from Xander as well, lest he see her as an adversary and slay her before she became a threat.  Her mother had wished for Camilla to trust no one, but Xander, for all of his skill on the battlefield, abhorred violence, couldn’t they all see that?

Xander caught Camilla’s eyes and held them.  He still hadn’t dropped his hand, and Camilla had continued to hold it.  Now, his fingers twitched against her cheek.

“I don’t want anyone else to see me like this.”  For once, Xander’s face was open.  “The nobles, they scheme to use my sickness to take power.  They hope to… Siegbert, do this for him, that he may preserve the peace.  There is no saving me now.  Please,” he said, “help me leave.”

Camilla nodded, understanding entirely.

“Only,” she said, “if I can come, too.”

Xander shifted his hand so that he could hold Camilla’s, and Camilla squeezed.

“Of course,” Xander said.  He smiled, a soft echo of what Camilla had seen of Siegbert earlier.  “Of course.”

* * *

(It would be Leo, not Siegbert, who would find them later.  Two of Nohr’s finest, grown tired over the many years of living under the constant reminder of the atrocities they had largely shouldered alone, sleeping peacefully for the rest of eternity.  Elise would cry, and Siegbert would stand, stony-faced, in fear of what fate had in store for him now that his Father had died.  Leo would draw them both in close.

Elise had always been closer to Xander, oddly enough—shining through fear and pain, putting on a face for the world.  Leo, for all that he matched himself up to Xander throughout his life, wondered if he wasn’t more like Camilla after all, a caretaker and defender of the defenseless.)

“Come,” he would say, “there is work to do.”

In the memory of Xander and Camilla, it would be done.)


End file.
